Final draft to appear in The Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism, Douglas Portmore Ed., 2020
The strategy of consequentializing features that are intuitively relevant to the deontic evaluati... more The strategy of consequentializing features that are intuitively relevant to the deontic evaluation of actions by building them into the telic evaluation of outcomes is almost as old as consequentialism itself. But the recent rejection by many consequentialists of the traditional commitment to an agent-neutral constraint on the relevant evaluation of outcomes has ushered in new consequentializing arguments for consequentialism and new consequentialist arguments for consequentializing. While the former fail, the latter ground the case for consequentializing in deeply entrenched and widely held commitments. These commitments to outcome-centered accounts of reasons, actions, and attitudes dictate that any plausible alternative account of what agents rationally and morally ought to do must be a form of consequentialism, hence must have a consequentialized form. Such outcome-centered commitments, however, all run afoul of commonsense in similar ways, and a pervasive strategy for mitigating this counter-intuitiveness trades upon a conflation of two distinct senses in which we speak of actions as bringing about outcomes.
Consequentializing involves both a strategy and conditions for its successful implementation. Th... more Consequentializing involves both a strategy and conditions for its successful implementation. The strategy takes the features a target theory holds to be relevant to deontic evaluation of actions, and builds them into a counterpart ranking of outcomes. It succeeds if the result is 1) a substantive version of consequentialism that 2) yields the same deontic verdicts as the target theory. Consequentializers typically claim and their critics allow that all plausible alternative theories can be consequentialized. I demonstrate that even standard alternatives such as Aristotelean virtue ethics and Kantian ethics cannot be. The strategy either leaves out features relevant to deontic evaluation on such target theories, resulting in failure of deontic equivalence, or, if it is altered to include these features, fails to produce a substantive version of consequentialism. The consequentializing strategy thus demonstrates not that we are all consequentialists now, but why so many of us are not, that it is misguided to impose a consequentialist account of deontic evaluation upon alternative theories, that it is the commitment to a constraint on value rationales that distinguishes consequentialist theories, and that the plausibility of this distinctive constraint should be the focus of the debate going forward.
Robert Myers' interpretation of Davidson's practical philosophy gets Davidson right in many funda... more Robert Myers' interpretation of Davidson's practical philosophy gets Davidson right in many fundamental respects. He rightly argues that Davidson avoids inconsistencies among internalism, ethical objectivity, and the belief-desire theory by modifying central elements of the Humean belief-desire theory, and that Davidson's alternative legitimizes the extension of his interpretation and triangulation arguments into the practical sphere. But at a crucial fork in the interpretive road Myers loses his way. Davidson follows Anscombe down a different path, one that takes individual desires to be constituted in part by evaluative judgements.
Consequentialism is a state of affairs centered moral theory that finds support in state of affai... more Consequentialism is a state of affairs centered moral theory that finds support in state of affairs centered views of value, reason, action, and desire/preference. Together these views form a mutually reinforcing circle. I map an exit route out of this circle by distinguishing between two different senses in which actions can be understood as bringing about states of affairs. All actions, reasons, desires, and values involve bringing about in the first, deflationary sense, but only some appear to involve bringing about in a second, rationalizing sense. I demonstrate that the views making up this circle hold, implausibly, that all reasons, values, desires, and actions involve bringing about in both senses, and that failure to distinguish these senses obscures the implausibility of these views as a set. I demonstrate, in addition, that the distinction blocks two common arguments that otherwise threaten to leverage us back in to the consequentialist circle.
I challenge the common picture of the " Standard Story " of Action as a neutral account of what a... more I challenge the common picture of the " Standard Story " of Action as a neutral account of what actions are within which debates in normative ethics can take place. I unpack three commitments that are implicit in the Standard Story, and demonstrate that these commitments together entail a teleological conception of reasons, upon which all reasons to act are reasons to bring about states of affairs. Such a conception of reasons, in turn, supports a consequentialist framework for the evaluation of action, upon which the normative status of actions is properly determined through appeal to rankings of states of affairs as better and worse. This covert support for consequentialism from the theory of action, I argue, has had a distorting effect on debates in normative ethics. I then present challenges to each of these three commitments, a challenge to the first commitment by T.M. Scanlon, a challenge to the second by recent interpreters of Anscombe, and a new challenge to the third commitment that requires only minimal and prima facie plausible modifications to the Standard Story. The success of any one of the challenges, I demonstrate, is sufficient to block support from the theory of action for the teleological conception of reasons and the consequentialist evaluative framework. I close by demonstrating the pivotal role that such arguments grounded in the theory of action play in the current debate between evaluator-relative consequentialists and their critics.
Many consequentialists take their theory to be anchored by a deeply intuitive idea, the “Compelli... more Many consequentialists take their theory to be anchored by a deeply intuitive idea, the “Compelling Idea” that it is always permissible to promote the best outcome. I demonstrate that this Idea is not, in fact, intuitive at all either in its agent-neutral or its evaluator-relative form. There are deeply intuitive ideas concerning the relationship of deontic to telic evaluation, but the Compelling Idea is at best a controversial interpretation of such ideas, not itself one of them. Because there is no Compelling Idea at the heart of consequentialism, there is no initial burden of proof to be discharged nor any air of paradox to be cleared away by its opponents.
In this paper I distinguish two different senses in which philosophers speak of moral verdicts, s... more In this paper I distinguish two different senses in which philosophers speak of moral verdicts, senses that in turn invite two different senses of moral overridingness. Although one of these senses of moral verdict currently dominates the moral overridingness debate, I focus primarily on the other, and on the importance of disambiguating the two. In section II I show that it is this other sense that offers the most straightforward explanation of the apparent conceptual connections between moral verdicts and both reasons and reactive attitudes. I demonstrate in section III that it is also the central sense deployed by moral theories that recognize distinctively moral reasons, but that need not appeal to distinctive moral verdicts from a distinctively moral point of view. In section IV I show that as more sophisticated variants have been developed within the dominant sense of moral verdict they have come to deploy central elements of this alternative sense, bringing the two closer together. I suggest along the way that the recent tendency to emphasize the dominant sense to the exclusion of the alternative, coupled with the failure to properly disambiguate the two, has fundamentally skewed central debates in moral theory. Finally, in section V I sketch a proposal for understanding the relationship between these two distinct senses.
Defenders of consequentialism typically concede that such a theory is indeed extremely demand... more Defenders of consequentialism typically concede that such a theory is indeed extremely demanding, confining, and alienating, but deploy a range of defenses against such charges. In this essay I argue that the deeper challenge confronting consequentialism is not one of excess but of defect, in particular of defects along precisely these dimensions upon which it is taken to be excessive. It is, I argue, a theory of exacting moral standards, but not of rational demands upon agents to conform to these standards. As a result, this theory of exacting moral standards can, with perfect consistency, be incorporated within an overall account upon which agents rarely if ever have any reasons to heed such standards. I will argue, moreover, that these challenges of defect confronting consequentialism are far more formidable than the traditional challenges of excess. The charges of excess array intuitions and considered judgments against the apparent theoretical strength of consequentialism. The charges of defect expose serious theoretical lacunae in consequentialism, undermining this apparent theoretical strength. My arguments establish that for the theory of consequentialist moral standards to make rational demands upon agents, it must be augmented with an account of reasons upon which rational agents typically have reasons to conform their actions to such standards. I close by exploring various strategies for augmenting the consequentialist theory of moral standards such that the result is a theory that makes rational demands upon agents to meet its exacting standards.
Teleological theories of reason and value, which take reasons to be reasons to realize best” stat... more Teleological theories of reason and value, which take reasons to be reasons to realize best” states of affairs, cannot account for the intuition that victims in non-identity cases have been wronged. Deontological accounts, however, recognize second-personal reasons, reflective of the moral significance of each person regardless of outcomes. We argue that such deontological accounts are better positioned to identify the wrong to victims in non-identity cases because a person wrongs another on such accounts if she violates his second-personal claims. Parfit argues that non-identity victims would consent to the acts in question, thereby waiving any such second-personal claims. But his arguments misrepresent the role of consent by articulating it through appeal to the very teleological theory of reasons that deontologists reject. We argue that Parfit's conception of consent as retroactive endorsement only determines whether, given that the non-identity victim is second-personally wronged, he is nonetheless better off existing. It becomes clear that non-identity poses a problem for teleology – it cannot account for the intuition that non-identity victims have been wronged – but deontology can.
Teleological theories of reason and value, upon which all reasons are fundamentally reasons to re... more Teleological theories of reason and value, upon which all reasons are fundamentally reasons to realize states of affairs that are in some respect best, cannot account for the intuition that victims in non-identity cases have been wronged. Many philosophers, however, reject such theories in favor of alternatives that recognize fundamentally non-teleological reasons, second-personal reasons that reflect a moral significance each person has that is not grounded in the teleologist’s appeal to outcomes. Such deontological accounts appear to be better positioned to identify the wrong committed against non-identity victims because a person wrongs another on such accounts if she violates his second-personal claims -- overall benefit to victims presents no obstacle to the identification of second-personal wrongdoing. Derek Parfit argues that non-identity is a problem for these deontological theories as well because the alleged victims are properly understood as consenting to the action in question, thereby waiving any such second-personal claim. But his arguments misrepresent the role of consent on such theories by articulating it through appeal to the very teleological theory of reasons that their advocates dismiss as inadequate. Properly understood, Parfit’s appeal to consent understood as retroactive endorsement only provides the answer on such deontological accounts to the question of whether, given that the non-identity victim is second-personally wronged, he is nonetheless better off existing. Indeed, it becomes clear that it is teleological theories for which non-identity poses a particular problem: they cannot -- while their deontological counterparts can – account for the intuition that non-identity victims have been wronged.
New evaluator-relative consequentialists endorse the traditional Doing-Allowing Distinction. But... more New evaluator-relative consequentialists endorse the traditional Doing-Allowing Distinction. But they shift their target to a new Doing-Allowing Distinction. Moreover, unlike the tradition Distinction, they take this new Distinction to be grounded in widely endorsed accounts of values, reasons, attitudes and actions. This paper clarifies the nature of the new Doing-Allowing Distinction, and of the core arguments for and against it. This debate, I argue, takes us beyond normative ethics and even metaethics to deep questions in philosophy of mind and the philosophy of action.
That many values can be consequentialized – incorporated into a ranking of states of affairs – is... more That many values can be consequentialized – incorporated into a ranking of states of affairs – is often taken to support the view that apparent alternatives to consequentialism are in fact forms of consequentialism. Such consequentializing arguments take two very different forms. The first is concerned with the relationship between morally right action and states of affairs evaluated evaluator-neutrally, the second with the relationship between what agents ought to do and outcomes evaluated evaluator-relatively. I challenge the consequentializing arguments for both forms of consequentialism. The plausibility of the evaluator-neutral consequentializing of certain values, I argue, in fact establishes the implausibility of an evaluator-neutral consequentialist account of such values. The problems that beset this evaluator-neutral consequentializing argument do not beset its evaluator-relative counterpart. But I demonstrate that evaluator-relatively consequentialized theories can also readily be ‘deontologized’, located within an alternative evaluative framework that is congenial to the articulation of nonconsequentialist moral theories. Such an alternative framework can accommodate what is compelling in consequentialists’ ‘Compelling Idea,’ and what is attractive in their Explanatory Thought. This alternative, moreover, can function as a shared evaluative framework within which the merits of consequentialist and nonconsequentialist alternatives can be considered without begging the question either way.
At the outset of The Possibility of Altruism Thomas Nagel charts two paths out of the fundam... more At the outset of The Possibility of Altruism Thomas Nagel charts two paths out of the fundamental dilemma confronting metaethics. The first path rejects the claim that a persuasive account of the motivational backing of ethical judgments must involve an agent’s desires. But it is the second path, a path that Nagel charts but does not himself take, that is the focus of this essay. This path retains the standard account, upon which all motivation involves desire, but denies that desires are given prior to reason. Instead, these attitudes that motivate are themselves open to rational assessment. One reason for this focus is that many philosophers, including Quinn, Raz, and Scanlon, have come to reject the claim Nagel takes to block this path – that desires are somehow given prior to reason, hence are not in the relevant way proper objects of rational assessment. A second reason is that unlike the first path, this second does not require the rejection of the belief-desire theory, only the rejection of one assumption about the nature of conative attitudes. Unlike Nagel’s chosen path, then, the second holds out the prospect of reconciling ethical objectivity, internalism, and the belief-desire theory within a unified account. I argue that the account of desire found in Quinn, Raz, and Scanlon, augmented by aspects of Davidson’s account of propositional attitudes, yields a coherent account of the involvement of reason even in basic desires, an account that is well suited to Nagel’s intriguing path not taken.
This paper demonstrates that a rationale for a circumscribed form of desire-based justification c... more This paper demonstrates that a rationale for a circumscribed form of desire-based justification can be developed out of a contemporary Kantian account as a natural extension of that account. I argue that certain of Christine Korsgaard’s recent arguments establish only that desires must have certain features antithetical to instrumentalism in order to justify. Other arguments purport to establish the standard (stronger) result: that because desires do not have these features, they cannot justify. Her arguments for this strong result, I contend, cannot be reconciled with central commitments in her epistemology and philosophy of mind. The consistent implementation of these commitments opens up a surprising space within what is still readily recognizable as a Kantian ethics – the space for desire-based justification.
Final draft to appear in The Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism, Douglas Portmore Ed., 2020
The strategy of consequentializing features that are intuitively relevant to the deontic evaluati... more The strategy of consequentializing features that are intuitively relevant to the deontic evaluation of actions by building them into the telic evaluation of outcomes is almost as old as consequentialism itself. But the recent rejection by many consequentialists of the traditional commitment to an agent-neutral constraint on the relevant evaluation of outcomes has ushered in new consequentializing arguments for consequentialism and new consequentialist arguments for consequentializing. While the former fail, the latter ground the case for consequentializing in deeply entrenched and widely held commitments. These commitments to outcome-centered accounts of reasons, actions, and attitudes dictate that any plausible alternative account of what agents rationally and morally ought to do must be a form of consequentialism, hence must have a consequentialized form. Such outcome-centered commitments, however, all run afoul of commonsense in similar ways, and a pervasive strategy for mitigating this counter-intuitiveness trades upon a conflation of two distinct senses in which we speak of actions as bringing about outcomes.
Consequentializing involves both a strategy and conditions for its successful implementation. Th... more Consequentializing involves both a strategy and conditions for its successful implementation. The strategy takes the features a target theory holds to be relevant to deontic evaluation of actions, and builds them into a counterpart ranking of outcomes. It succeeds if the result is 1) a substantive version of consequentialism that 2) yields the same deontic verdicts as the target theory. Consequentializers typically claim and their critics allow that all plausible alternative theories can be consequentialized. I demonstrate that even standard alternatives such as Aristotelean virtue ethics and Kantian ethics cannot be. The strategy either leaves out features relevant to deontic evaluation on such target theories, resulting in failure of deontic equivalence, or, if it is altered to include these features, fails to produce a substantive version of consequentialism. The consequentializing strategy thus demonstrates not that we are all consequentialists now, but why so many of us are not, that it is misguided to impose a consequentialist account of deontic evaluation upon alternative theories, that it is the commitment to a constraint on value rationales that distinguishes consequentialist theories, and that the plausibility of this distinctive constraint should be the focus of the debate going forward.
Robert Myers' interpretation of Davidson's practical philosophy gets Davidson right in many funda... more Robert Myers' interpretation of Davidson's practical philosophy gets Davidson right in many fundamental respects. He rightly argues that Davidson avoids inconsistencies among internalism, ethical objectivity, and the belief-desire theory by modifying central elements of the Humean belief-desire theory, and that Davidson's alternative legitimizes the extension of his interpretation and triangulation arguments into the practical sphere. But at a crucial fork in the interpretive road Myers loses his way. Davidson follows Anscombe down a different path, one that takes individual desires to be constituted in part by evaluative judgements.
Consequentialism is a state of affairs centered moral theory that finds support in state of affai... more Consequentialism is a state of affairs centered moral theory that finds support in state of affairs centered views of value, reason, action, and desire/preference. Together these views form a mutually reinforcing circle. I map an exit route out of this circle by distinguishing between two different senses in which actions can be understood as bringing about states of affairs. All actions, reasons, desires, and values involve bringing about in the first, deflationary sense, but only some appear to involve bringing about in a second, rationalizing sense. I demonstrate that the views making up this circle hold, implausibly, that all reasons, values, desires, and actions involve bringing about in both senses, and that failure to distinguish these senses obscures the implausibility of these views as a set. I demonstrate, in addition, that the distinction blocks two common arguments that otherwise threaten to leverage us back in to the consequentialist circle.
I challenge the common picture of the " Standard Story " of Action as a neutral account of what a... more I challenge the common picture of the " Standard Story " of Action as a neutral account of what actions are within which debates in normative ethics can take place. I unpack three commitments that are implicit in the Standard Story, and demonstrate that these commitments together entail a teleological conception of reasons, upon which all reasons to act are reasons to bring about states of affairs. Such a conception of reasons, in turn, supports a consequentialist framework for the evaluation of action, upon which the normative status of actions is properly determined through appeal to rankings of states of affairs as better and worse. This covert support for consequentialism from the theory of action, I argue, has had a distorting effect on debates in normative ethics. I then present challenges to each of these three commitments, a challenge to the first commitment by T.M. Scanlon, a challenge to the second by recent interpreters of Anscombe, and a new challenge to the third commitment that requires only minimal and prima facie plausible modifications to the Standard Story. The success of any one of the challenges, I demonstrate, is sufficient to block support from the theory of action for the teleological conception of reasons and the consequentialist evaluative framework. I close by demonstrating the pivotal role that such arguments grounded in the theory of action play in the current debate between evaluator-relative consequentialists and their critics.
Many consequentialists take their theory to be anchored by a deeply intuitive idea, the “Compelli... more Many consequentialists take their theory to be anchored by a deeply intuitive idea, the “Compelling Idea” that it is always permissible to promote the best outcome. I demonstrate that this Idea is not, in fact, intuitive at all either in its agent-neutral or its evaluator-relative form. There are deeply intuitive ideas concerning the relationship of deontic to telic evaluation, but the Compelling Idea is at best a controversial interpretation of such ideas, not itself one of them. Because there is no Compelling Idea at the heart of consequentialism, there is no initial burden of proof to be discharged nor any air of paradox to be cleared away by its opponents.
In this paper I distinguish two different senses in which philosophers speak of moral verdicts, s... more In this paper I distinguish two different senses in which philosophers speak of moral verdicts, senses that in turn invite two different senses of moral overridingness. Although one of these senses of moral verdict currently dominates the moral overridingness debate, I focus primarily on the other, and on the importance of disambiguating the two. In section II I show that it is this other sense that offers the most straightforward explanation of the apparent conceptual connections between moral verdicts and both reasons and reactive attitudes. I demonstrate in section III that it is also the central sense deployed by moral theories that recognize distinctively moral reasons, but that need not appeal to distinctive moral verdicts from a distinctively moral point of view. In section IV I show that as more sophisticated variants have been developed within the dominant sense of moral verdict they have come to deploy central elements of this alternative sense, bringing the two closer together. I suggest along the way that the recent tendency to emphasize the dominant sense to the exclusion of the alternative, coupled with the failure to properly disambiguate the two, has fundamentally skewed central debates in moral theory. Finally, in section V I sketch a proposal for understanding the relationship between these two distinct senses.
Defenders of consequentialism typically concede that such a theory is indeed extremely demand... more Defenders of consequentialism typically concede that such a theory is indeed extremely demanding, confining, and alienating, but deploy a range of defenses against such charges. In this essay I argue that the deeper challenge confronting consequentialism is not one of excess but of defect, in particular of defects along precisely these dimensions upon which it is taken to be excessive. It is, I argue, a theory of exacting moral standards, but not of rational demands upon agents to conform to these standards. As a result, this theory of exacting moral standards can, with perfect consistency, be incorporated within an overall account upon which agents rarely if ever have any reasons to heed such standards. I will argue, moreover, that these challenges of defect confronting consequentialism are far more formidable than the traditional challenges of excess. The charges of excess array intuitions and considered judgments against the apparent theoretical strength of consequentialism. The charges of defect expose serious theoretical lacunae in consequentialism, undermining this apparent theoretical strength. My arguments establish that for the theory of consequentialist moral standards to make rational demands upon agents, it must be augmented with an account of reasons upon which rational agents typically have reasons to conform their actions to such standards. I close by exploring various strategies for augmenting the consequentialist theory of moral standards such that the result is a theory that makes rational demands upon agents to meet its exacting standards.
Teleological theories of reason and value, which take reasons to be reasons to realize best” stat... more Teleological theories of reason and value, which take reasons to be reasons to realize best” states of affairs, cannot account for the intuition that victims in non-identity cases have been wronged. Deontological accounts, however, recognize second-personal reasons, reflective of the moral significance of each person regardless of outcomes. We argue that such deontological accounts are better positioned to identify the wrong to victims in non-identity cases because a person wrongs another on such accounts if she violates his second-personal claims. Parfit argues that non-identity victims would consent to the acts in question, thereby waiving any such second-personal claims. But his arguments misrepresent the role of consent by articulating it through appeal to the very teleological theory of reasons that deontologists reject. We argue that Parfit's conception of consent as retroactive endorsement only determines whether, given that the non-identity victim is second-personally wronged, he is nonetheless better off existing. It becomes clear that non-identity poses a problem for teleology – it cannot account for the intuition that non-identity victims have been wronged – but deontology can.
Teleological theories of reason and value, upon which all reasons are fundamentally reasons to re... more Teleological theories of reason and value, upon which all reasons are fundamentally reasons to realize states of affairs that are in some respect best, cannot account for the intuition that victims in non-identity cases have been wronged. Many philosophers, however, reject such theories in favor of alternatives that recognize fundamentally non-teleological reasons, second-personal reasons that reflect a moral significance each person has that is not grounded in the teleologist’s appeal to outcomes. Such deontological accounts appear to be better positioned to identify the wrong committed against non-identity victims because a person wrongs another on such accounts if she violates his second-personal claims -- overall benefit to victims presents no obstacle to the identification of second-personal wrongdoing. Derek Parfit argues that non-identity is a problem for these deontological theories as well because the alleged victims are properly understood as consenting to the action in question, thereby waiving any such second-personal claim. But his arguments misrepresent the role of consent on such theories by articulating it through appeal to the very teleological theory of reasons that their advocates dismiss as inadequate. Properly understood, Parfit’s appeal to consent understood as retroactive endorsement only provides the answer on such deontological accounts to the question of whether, given that the non-identity victim is second-personally wronged, he is nonetheless better off existing. Indeed, it becomes clear that it is teleological theories for which non-identity poses a particular problem: they cannot -- while their deontological counterparts can – account for the intuition that non-identity victims have been wronged.
New evaluator-relative consequentialists endorse the traditional Doing-Allowing Distinction. But... more New evaluator-relative consequentialists endorse the traditional Doing-Allowing Distinction. But they shift their target to a new Doing-Allowing Distinction. Moreover, unlike the tradition Distinction, they take this new Distinction to be grounded in widely endorsed accounts of values, reasons, attitudes and actions. This paper clarifies the nature of the new Doing-Allowing Distinction, and of the core arguments for and against it. This debate, I argue, takes us beyond normative ethics and even metaethics to deep questions in philosophy of mind and the philosophy of action.
That many values can be consequentialized – incorporated into a ranking of states of affairs – is... more That many values can be consequentialized – incorporated into a ranking of states of affairs – is often taken to support the view that apparent alternatives to consequentialism are in fact forms of consequentialism. Such consequentializing arguments take two very different forms. The first is concerned with the relationship between morally right action and states of affairs evaluated evaluator-neutrally, the second with the relationship between what agents ought to do and outcomes evaluated evaluator-relatively. I challenge the consequentializing arguments for both forms of consequentialism. The plausibility of the evaluator-neutral consequentializing of certain values, I argue, in fact establishes the implausibility of an evaluator-neutral consequentialist account of such values. The problems that beset this evaluator-neutral consequentializing argument do not beset its evaluator-relative counterpart. But I demonstrate that evaluator-relatively consequentialized theories can also readily be ‘deontologized’, located within an alternative evaluative framework that is congenial to the articulation of nonconsequentialist moral theories. Such an alternative framework can accommodate what is compelling in consequentialists’ ‘Compelling Idea,’ and what is attractive in their Explanatory Thought. This alternative, moreover, can function as a shared evaluative framework within which the merits of consequentialist and nonconsequentialist alternatives can be considered without begging the question either way.
At the outset of The Possibility of Altruism Thomas Nagel charts two paths out of the fundam... more At the outset of The Possibility of Altruism Thomas Nagel charts two paths out of the fundamental dilemma confronting metaethics. The first path rejects the claim that a persuasive account of the motivational backing of ethical judgments must involve an agent’s desires. But it is the second path, a path that Nagel charts but does not himself take, that is the focus of this essay. This path retains the standard account, upon which all motivation involves desire, but denies that desires are given prior to reason. Instead, these attitudes that motivate are themselves open to rational assessment. One reason for this focus is that many philosophers, including Quinn, Raz, and Scanlon, have come to reject the claim Nagel takes to block this path – that desires are somehow given prior to reason, hence are not in the relevant way proper objects of rational assessment. A second reason is that unlike the first path, this second does not require the rejection of the belief-desire theory, only the rejection of one assumption about the nature of conative attitudes. Unlike Nagel’s chosen path, then, the second holds out the prospect of reconciling ethical objectivity, internalism, and the belief-desire theory within a unified account. I argue that the account of desire found in Quinn, Raz, and Scanlon, augmented by aspects of Davidson’s account of propositional attitudes, yields a coherent account of the involvement of reason even in basic desires, an account that is well suited to Nagel’s intriguing path not taken.
This paper demonstrates that a rationale for a circumscribed form of desire-based justification c... more This paper demonstrates that a rationale for a circumscribed form of desire-based justification can be developed out of a contemporary Kantian account as a natural extension of that account. I argue that certain of Christine Korsgaard’s recent arguments establish only that desires must have certain features antithetical to instrumentalism in order to justify. Other arguments purport to establish the standard (stronger) result: that because desires do not have these features, they cannot justify. Her arguments for this strong result, I contend, cannot be reconciled with central commitments in her epistemology and philosophy of mind. The consistent implementation of these commitments opens up a surprising space within what is still readily recognizable as a Kantian ethics – the space for desire-based justification.
The focus of this book is consequentialism, the moral theory upon which an action is morally righ... more The focus of this book is consequentialism, the moral theory upon which an action is morally right just in case its performance leads to the best state of affairs. The theory can with some plausibility claim a status as the default alternative in contemporary moral philosophy; moreover, its pervasive deployment in spheres such as economics, public policy, and jurisprudence is one of the striking developments of the last 150 years. It is the thesis of this book that debates concerning the challenge of consequentialism tend to overlook a fundamental challenge to consequentialism, an unresolved tension between the theory and many of its most fundamental presuppositions. An appreciation of the nature of this tension grounds the articulation of a fundamental challenge to the theory from within. This challenge is developed and sharpened through the first 4 chapters of the book. Development of this challenge to consequentialism in turn reveals that the apparent force of the challenge of consequentialism is largely illusory. Chapter 5 demonstrates that many traditional rationales offered in its support draw upon systematic misappropriations of intuitions linking rightness of actions and goodness of actions, treating them as intuitions concerning rightness of actions and goodness of overall states of affairs. Chapters 6 and 7 demonstrate that one remaining rationale, a rationale grounded in the appeal to the impartiality of morality, does not provide support for the theory; indeed, that attempts to respond to the tension within consequentialism suggest a fundamental role for an alternative to the consequentialist’s impersonal conception of impartiality, an interpersonal rather than an impersonal conception of equal concern. Unlike the consequentialist’s impersonal conception, such interpersonal impartiality can allow for the ordinary moral convictions that actions that do not promote about the best overall state of affairs are often morally permitted, and sometimes morally required.
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wrong to victims in non-identity cases because a person wrongs another on such accounts if she violates his second-personal claims. Parfit argues that non-identity victims would consent to the acts in question, thereby waiving any such second-personal
claims. But his arguments misrepresent the role of consent by articulating it through appeal to the very teleological theory of reasons that deontologists reject. We argue that Parfit's conception of consent as retroactive endorsement only determines whether, given that the non-identity victim is second-personally wronged, he is nonetheless better off existing. It becomes clear that non-identity poses a problem for
teleology – it cannot account for the intuition that non-identity victims have been wronged – but deontology can.
wrong to victims in non-identity cases because a person wrongs another on such accounts if she violates his second-personal claims. Parfit argues that non-identity victims would consent to the acts in question, thereby waiving any such second-personal
claims. But his arguments misrepresent the role of consent by articulating it through appeal to the very teleological theory of reasons that deontologists reject. We argue that Parfit's conception of consent as retroactive endorsement only determines whether, given that the non-identity victim is second-personally wronged, he is nonetheless better off existing. It becomes clear that non-identity poses a problem for
teleology – it cannot account for the intuition that non-identity victims have been wronged – but deontology can.